Bradford Cox knows a thing or two about creating a schism between his everyday self and the one he presents on record. In interviews he's garrulous and outspoken, ostensibly brimming with confidence, yet plagued by insecurity. All that self-doubt manifests itself in his solo project, Atlas Sound, where he often sounds small, alone, and cut adrift from the world. At times Cox seems at odds with himself, but dig deeper and there's usually a thread running through his real-world activities and the ideas he obsesses over when recording.
And he's always recording. Last year, Cox released four albums of Atlas Sound demos as the free-download Bedroom Databank series. It's a wonder he can keep track of all his work, but one of his biggest talents-- aside from his rich vein of form as a songwriter-- is as an editor. Not only does he know exactly what to release officially and what to preserve as a blog-only treat for fans, he's also intuitively adept at compartmentalizing material into his Deerhunter and Atlas Sound worlds.
Despite the separation, those two modes aren't mutually exclusive, and it's always interesting to see how Cox's two guises feed off each other while retaining strong individual identities. The last Deerhunter album, Halcyon Digest, ended with "He Would Have Laughed", built around a spaghetti-like loop of synthesized noise. It mirrors a trick that's revisited just a few songs into Parallax, on "Te Amo". Here, Cox leans on a repeating pattern, then pulls away from it by testing the elasticity of his vocal range, stretching into a gruff register he's rarely tried out before. Atlas Sound often functions this way, taking baby steps on the road to evolution and leaving traces of previous material to ground the listener. The two constants are Cox's fascination with ambient music and the unabashed sadness at the heart of his writing. "When you're down, you're always down," he croons on "Te Amo".
Crooning has held Cox's interest for a while now. Versions of Hank Williams' "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" and the Rodgers and Hart standard "Blue Moon" appeared on his blog back in 2008, and his cover of Joe Meek's "Valley of the Saroos" is one of his most impressive giveaways. Lately, Cox has been playing around with image, something he hasn't attempted much since his early dress-wearing days in Deerhunter, and he appears to have settled on a hybrid of Meek-ian high hair and David Bowie's plastic emulation of the rock'n'roll era circa Let's Dance. On the Mick Rock-shot cover of Parallax he's even depicted clutching a vintage 1950s microphone. So it's appropriate that this record begins with "The Shakes", where Cox casts himself as an idol who's grown bored of fame, money, and hangers-on masquerading as friends. It echoes Bowie's weary exasperation at the clamor for fame in the documentary Cracked Actor, where he rides around middle America in a limo and compares himself to a fly swimming around in his glass of milk.
That link to Bowie loops back to the Young Americans-style sax solo on "Coronado" from Halcyon Digest, further indicating how one Cox project informs his others. But his omnivorous approach to music history, and the restraint that keeps him from drawing too much from his heroes' own sounds, makes Parallax a constantly shifting delight. In the past, Cox's affinity for masked vocals allowed him to keep his guard up, stopping listeners from encroaching on his malaise. Here, he uses fewer vocal effects, and the gentle balladry of "Modern Aquatic Nightsongs" and "Terra Incognita" benefit greatly from it. This cleaner approach to his art demonstrates his growing confidence as a singer and songwriter and feels more involving.
But that's only part of the picture. Because Cox likes to confound, surprise, and keep his audience guessing, one of his shiniest pop moments yet lies at the center of this record. "Mona Lisa" is a jaunty piece of melancholia-tinged guitar rock, hung up somewhere between the livelier moments on R.E.M.'s Green and the rural tug at the heart of the Kinks' best material. Comparing this track with the deliberately jaded lyrical framework of "The Shakes" highlights one of the most fascinating juxtapositions about Cox; he's so well versed in music history that he knows he'll hate the pitfalls that await him if proper fame comes beckoning, and yet his inclination toward deeply accessibile songwriting and infernally catchy pop melodies might drive him in that direction anyway. There's also more bridge-building on "Mona Lisa" and the garage-y "My Angel Is Broken", where he sounds confident and vulnerable at the same time, drawing some of that swagger he possesses in real life into his art.
Parallax feels like a more complete work than any other Atlas Sound record, with the differences between the songs less distinct and everything flowing together more naturally. "Quick Canal" was a standout on Logos but it also stood alone, feeling like a neat one-off collaboration with a hero (in that case, Stereolab singer Laetitia Sadier) that didn't readily come into focus in the overall picture. There are no such loose strands here, and the closing "Lightworks" ends the album wonderfully with a tremoloed guitar shuddering against Cox's hankering vocal line and uncanny pop nouse. It's another testament to his editing skills; he can effortlessly balance a sizable load of contrasting styles and slot them together like it's the most natural thing in the world. That lightness of touch is on display throughout this album, providing greater gravitas to Cox's brittle self-examination. Parallax still makes him sound small, alone, and cut adrift from the world, but the way these songs breathe suggests he's more comfortable in his own skin, allowing him to draw his audience closer than ever.
